Ideas for a Fundraising Gift Basket

by Maggie McCormick

Selling gift baskets as a fundraiser may appeal more to your audience than some other types of fundraisers. The key to a successful gift basket fundraiser is to design baskets that are inexpensive to make and affordable to your supporters. If you price your baskets too high, you won't get any takers.

Branded Goods

Create a basket full of goods that you've branded with your organization's logo. For example, you could start with a tote bag and fill it with a beach ball, pencils and pens, t-shirts and notebooks. You'll get a better deal on these items when you buy in bulk, so this idea works best when you want to sell the same gift basket to each of your supporters.

Local Businesses

If your charity supports the local community, you can ask local business owners to donate goods or services to place in the baskets. Potentially, each business could create its own basket or you can take the items from each business and combine them into a basket. The baskets you have will be one-of-a-kind, so this idea works well if you want to auction the baskets or offer them as part of a raffle.

Charity-Related Items

Think about the items that relate to your organization--the types of things that your supporters may need and then create gift baskets with that in mind. For example, if your charity supports animals, there's a good chance that your supporters have pets, so you may want to create gift baskets of pet items. If your charity uses art to improve the community, you can create baskets filled with art supplies.

Volunteer-Created

Ask your volunteers to make items that you can place in a gift basket. This works especially well if you are interested in creating food gift baskets, as each volunteer could make a baked good for inclusion in the basket. Volunteers may also have a craft that they can use to fill your gift basket, such as knitting hats and scarves or sewing baby quilts. These items don't have to relate specifically to your organization, as the point is to highlight the talents of your volunteers. The great thing about this type of basket is that it reduces your costs, since the volunteers donate items and time.

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About the Author

Maggie McCormick is a freelance writer. She lived in Japan for three years teaching preschool to young children and currently lives in Honolulu with her family. She received a B.A. in women's studies from Wellesley College.